Pseudoagatea
by Mobius Shadow
Summary: Pseudoagatea, on the far side of the Counterweight Continent is in a civil war. Watch Rincewind fall in love, meet giant eels, deal with a new kind of Moving picture called Animo and meet the ever lucky anti-Rincewind. How many chapters do I have NOW?
1. In which Things Go Wrong

Same bat fic, same bat author, same bat disclaimer.  
  
* * *  
  
Mustrum Ridcully looked up from his newspaper. He was getting sick of the newspaper, because all it wrote about any more was the war in Pseudoagatea, a small country on the far Rimwards side of the Counterweight Continent. What it basically said was that there were now two dozen countries involved and Ephebie and the Agatean Empire had actually sent troops. He set down the paper with a sigh and looked at the wizard across the table, which was Ponder Stibbons.  
  
"Yes, Arch chancellor. It's quite interesting."  
  
"Why are they doing it?"  
  
"Well, the Counterweight Continent is mostly Agatean Empire territory. However, on the far Rimwards side of it are two islands and a strip of land. The larger island, Ting ling, is half owned by the Empire, half by the Pseudoagateans. The smaller island is all Pseudoagatea."  
  
"Fascinating. Would you pass the marmalade, Bursar?"  
  
"You know, a cucumber is thirty percent green."  
  
"The marmalade, Bursar."  
  
"Well there's no need to get waterlogged about it!"  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"You know, Arch chancellor, we could actually look in on the war, if you want."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Well, I've wired in a new magic mirror on Hex, and I think you'll find it works much better than that crystal ball we were fighting with last time we tried to see the Counterweight Continent."  
  
"Really. Well, I suppose that would be interesting."  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind was having a really good day. The Librarian had given him a piece of taffy which had cemented his jaw shut, the floor was a mess, and the janitor was away, and they'd actually let him sweep it up without interruptions. The room with the Thinking Machine Hex was a mess as Hex clanked away and occasionally sprouted new parts Rincewind was certain weren't there a minute ago. At one point a large metal bar shot out of the depths and stuck itself in the ceiling. And that had been the high of the adventure so far. The Luggage was asleep in one corner, its lid flapping up and down as in snored. Rincewind sighed happily with boredom. Suddenly, the little quill on the front of the machine began to scribble.  
  
+++Warning: quantum ribbon muffin+++  
  
"Huh?"  
  
+++Ribbon detected. Expulsion procedure activated+++  
  
"Mmm." Rincewind slid back to the wall and made himself as flat as possible. Suddenly, a long piece of rope with a weight on the end shot out of the top of Hex, clanged off the pipe still stuck in the ceiling, wrapped itself around Rincewind's broom, and then reeled it back in.  
  
"Mmmm!" Rincewind rushed over to Hex and wandered into the maze of tubing, looking for the broom. He was going to need it, or else they were going to make him do something Interesting. Two people walked into the room.  
  
"Well, here we go, Arch chancellor, Hex."  
  
"I've seen it before, Stibbons. Show me this mirror."  
  
Ponder Stibbons went over to Hex and pulled a green lever. A mirror about a foot on a side rose out of some tubing, then seemed to flicker, and went black, reflecting nothing. At the top was a flickering little white line, flashing on and off.  
  
"Interesting, but I haven't seen anything yet."  
  
"No, Arch chancellor, you haven't." Ponder grabbed hold of two valve wheels below the mirror, and turned them, then pulled another lever. On the mirror appeared:  
  
+++Welcome to the Distant Disc Display interface. You have entered the coordinates for: Switch'off, Pseudoagatea. If this is correct, pull the blue lever. If not, pull the red lever+++_  
  
"What's that triple D stuff about?"  
  
"Oh, I've working on it for months." Ponder swelled with pride. "I preprogrammed it with punch cards for certain locations, and with them in, we can pinpoint any spot on the Disc."  
  
"Interesting. What else can it do?"  
  
"With pinpoint precision, we can send things back and forth with better accuracy than before."  
  
"So this sort of thing could supersede the Semaphore?"  
  
"Not likely. It's very temperamental. There are all sorts of parts it took me ages to create, and there are a few I'm not sure I can make again. Look at this, for example." He pointed to a large brown feather that was entwined with a piece of wire running from a fishing rod to a small hole in a block of wood. "This is the feather of the Farrell Duck, which was declared extinct in the year of the Indecisive Mule. We have a stuffed bird, but lost it in a magic loop along with five students and one classroom. It's been cut off from the rest of the universe, but may latch on again at some point. They will be missed. At any rate, this feather is the only one of its kind in the university, and possibly the Disc. Until I find a more common replacement, don't go anywhere near that feather."  
  
"Right."  
  
"Ahem. Sorry. So, to connect with Switch' Off, I will pull the blue lever and-" the black screen with white letters was suddenly replaced with the scene of a busy town square. Auriental people rushed back and forth, occasionally stopping to talk to each other.  
  
"Wow. So we can send things there, also?"  
  
"Certainly. Got anything that looks about the weight of that cart?"  
  
"How about this?" Ridcully grabbed a discarded wooden box and pulled it forward.  
  
"Yes, that'll do." Ponder reached up on Hex and pointed something that looked like a crossbow at the box."  
  
"Mmmm!"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Wasn't me, Stibbons. Get on with the experiment."  
  
"Okay. So if I push this-" the crossbow's tip began to glow green. Suddenly, there was a clang from inside Hex, and Rincewind vaulted over the highest glass tube, broom in hand. He ran into the box and tipped it over. The crossbow went off, and for an instant Rincewind glowed green, and then he, the box, and the broom were gone.  
  
"Oh-" But Ponder was interrupted again, this time by the arrival of a large cart filled with rice, which appeared moving and crashed into Hex, breaking levers and shattering tubes.  
  
"Damn!" said Ridcully with satisfaction. "That was interesting. Now how do we bring back Rincewind and give-" he squinted at the mirror- "the angry peasant who is whaling the stuffing out of him back his cart?"  
  
But Ponder was on he his knees next to the cart "We can't. The feather has been ruined." And he held up two halves of what might, by a stretch of imagination, have once been a feather.  
  
And, as Ridcully looked back up, the mirror, which was still in tact, faded until it was just a mirror again. 


	2. The Search for the Farrell Duck

Please review. PLEASE. I'm not going to keep updating a story no one reads.  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind sat up. This was immeadiately proved a bad decision, as a foot was planted on his head and he was forced to the ground again. A voice above him addressed him.  
  
"Spy! You will be shot if you move! I will notify the army of your presence, and you will be shot."  
  
Rincewind flashed his eyes around, and saw that he was surrounded by angry looking Auriental people with crossbows. This was not anything new. Angry looking Auriental people with crossbows seemed to be something the happened to him. Rincewind sighed.  
  
* * *  
  
Ponder and Ridcully rushed through the halls of Unseen University.  
  
"This is terrible! If they get mad at Rincewind and find out he's from Ankh- Morpork, they might declare war on us! This is worse than the slipknot that swallowed that classroom with the bird."  
  
"Yeah. Oh, and the Dean was in there too."  
  
"What!?"  
  
"Remembered just this morning. I'd been wondering why it was so quiet."  
  
"Well, I have no idea if any of those birds is still alive. I've gone through everything from grass to molybdenum, and-"  
  
"Molybdenum?"  
  
"Yes. The leader of the alchemist's guild discovered it yesterday and named it after his niece. He gave me a piece of it, and it just burned up, and WE NEED THAT FEATHER!"  
  
"So you don't think there's any of those ducks left alive in the wild?"  
  
"No. But if there were, we'd have to have something that could detect these ducks.  
  
"You know, we haven't got a THING that'll do it, but we DO have people."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Two. The Bursar and-"  
  
* * *  
  
"Eskarina Smith?" Ponder leaned in through the doorway of Classroom 67-Q. Classroom 67-Q was, a rule, never used by anyone for anything. One main reason was that it didn't exist on Teusdays. The wizards had tried throwing garbage into it, to see if it would dissapear when the classroom vanished, but is was always back on Wednesday. So now nobody did anything in it, except Esk, who rather liked the place. She looked up from the book she was reading.  
  
"Oh. Hello, what can I do for you?'  
  
Ponder swallowed painfully, and found he was sweating. "Erm, hi. I would like you to see if you can sense the mind of a really rare species of duck."  
  
"That's right," boomed Ridcully, bounding in the door after Ponder, leading the Bursar by his shirtsleeve. "This one." He held up a copy of a hunting magaizine, one half folded over, showing a large brown duck. "This is the Farrell duck. It is presumed extinct, but I've gone looking for so-called extinct species before and made really sure that they were. The Bursar here has been told to act in the likeness of this duck, and from his temperment you should be able to distinguish this rare duck from all the other rare ducks that should be mounted on my wall right now." He turned to the Bursar. "You are a duck. You like the sunlight and have no fear of people. You will make a nest on or near anything, and when comfortable will not move unless you want to. You are sleek and majestic, and would look really good next to Mighty Hal the swordfish on my wall. Now go!"  
  
The Bursar began to waddle around the room and quacked a couple times before climbing up on the desk and sinking into a sitting position.  
  
"Perfect!" Shouted Ridcully, "That's EXACTLY what it looked like before I shot it!"  
  
He saw the expressions on the faces of Ponder and Eskarina and closed his mouth.  
  
"Okay," said Esk, and closed her eyes. Her mind raced through multitudes of ducks on the Ankh and in cage for sale. Suddenly, a glimmer at the Edger of her mind caught her attention. She examined it closely, then raced back to the University to compare it to the mind of the Bursar, who was shredding a desk calender to make a nest.  
  
They were the same.  
  
She snapped out of her trance, steadied herself, and looked at Ponder.  
  
"I've found a duck. And you won't believe this. It's a quarter mile from here, headed Hubwards." 


	3. In which Rincewind Hits Bottom

See previous disclaimers and REVIEW  
  
* * *  
  
"Right. If I move, I will be shot. Please don't be highwaymen. I've only got this hat."  
  
The small army surrounding him exchanged looks amongst its members."  
  
"Nonsense," said the one who had his foot on Rincewind's head, "he is not the One."  
  
"No!" said Rincewind, who recognized the tone of voice, "I am not! I swear that I am not anything special." Everyone gasped. The peasant who had first attacked Rincewind looked shocked. The man above him stiffened, and Rincewind closed his eyes.  
  
"I admit, you fulfill the Prophesy. Where do you come from?"  
  
"Ankh-Morpork."  
  
There was a general sigh.  
  
"But where do your ancestors come from?"  
  
"Ephebie"  
  
Everyone gasped again, and Rincewind took the opportunity to see who had spoken. It was a woman, dressed in a white shirt like vestment with baggy red pants.  
  
"Uyidako, we have no proof this man is the Great Wizard-"  
  
"I'm Not the Great Wizard, let me go!" Rincewind grabbed the man's ankle, flipped him, grabbed his crossbow as it fell, and fired a shot randomly into the crowd. He punched out one of them and made a break for the jungle that surrounded what was obviously a small village in the middle of nowhere. There were unpainted wooden huts, with large stones on the roofs, and fifty yards till the last f them and freedom. There was a beach on his right, and-  
  
-More soldiers than he could shake a stick at in front of him. He sagged, turned around, and-  
  
-Was face to face with Uyidako. Who was holding his arrow.  
  
"You can come with me," she whispered quietly, "Or try to convince them you're a regular visitor in a town with fifty people. Your call."  
  
Begging and pleading time. Rincewind dropped to his knees and grabbed Uyidako beseechingly around the waist.  
  
"Please have mercy."  
  
The soldiers laughed, and Uyidako blushed a bright color. Then she unpried Rincewind.  
  
"Come with me."  
  
* * *  
  
Ponder Stibbons and Eskarina smith with barreling down the street in search of one of the Disc's most elusive species, the Farrell Duck.  
  
"I can feel it. We're really close now." Ponder looked around Esk had been running with her eyes closed. She was not blind, with her Borrowing abilities and such, but clearly hadn't noticed they'd wandered into a seedy part of town. Not the Shades, just a seedy part of town where there were no building codes and no buildings that looked like they'd survived to the signing of the end of the documents if there had been any.  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Yes I am, and-" Esk grabbed his hand, and Ponder jumped. "There it is!"  
  
And Ponder saw it too. The Farrell Duck, alive, quacking, one street away.  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind and Uyidako were sitting in standard tea service fashion near a table made out of a box that said Johnson's Kazoos on the side. The poorly designed sliding door had been closed, and dim candles lit the interior, while bright white light streamed through the windows. It didn't actually light up anything, but streamed through simply for effect. Rincewind had a felling this had effect been cultivated.  
  
"So, um, you lay accordions?" She gave him a shocked look. "I mean live here. Sorry, I've been desperately trying to forget this language ever sine my last trip to the Aurient. What happens here that you need such a large army?"  
  
She gave him a perplexed look. "Don't you know? This is Switch' Off. We are one of the only cities left free on this island. There is an attack force that has been assembled by the Agatean Empire and others to drive us into submission and annex this half of Ting Ling for their countries. We have supporters, too though, but the war is going badly. I think we have about one more week of freedom before we cease to be guerillas and become rioters in someone else's country. But I won't let that happen. I am Uyidako, village priestess, and I am currently the head of five hundred Pseudoagatean soldiers and one hundred Ephebean Marines. But the thousands outnumber us, that they do. Even if we did number more, we would still have no chance against the Walking Suits."  
  
"Whaa?"  
  
"I will explain later. Now, you must wonder at the Prophesy."  
  
"Yes. I want to really convince them I can't be their leader."  
  
"Um, very well. This is the Prophesy." 


	4. Whence the Dean?

Thinks to everyone who reviews.  
  
Disc-laimer: I own none of this.  
  
* * *  
  
For everyone who has ever owned a lava lamp, or at least has stared at one for a long amount of time, bring it to mind. Imagine that the blobs of wax are in fact universes, merging and unmerging at their own discretion. When a blob splits, look closely; there will probably be a small blob that neither goes with the separating wax, nor sinks back to the bottom. It snaps free of both. Imagine this blob to be a very small universe.  
  
The Dean was getting a bit upset. Shortly after beginning his 'Blacksmithing and the Occult' lecture, one of the students had finally snapped and tried to leave. The Dean used his normal reaction, which was to fire a spell at the door, which would keep the student from leaving. The Student, whose name was Omar Murdock, had gotten the door open, but saw the outside hall fade into blackness before him. He looked around, and there was the classroom behind him, and the doorframe on both sides, and utter, utter blackness everywhere else. The air did not rush out of the room, and the candles, which were its only source of light, as it was an interior classroom, did not even gutter. They slowly burned down as the lecture ended and it became clear that there was nowhere to go. The students had actually started reading the handful of books on the shelves, which though not dense or magical enough to connect the room with L-space, were able to explain what had happened. The Dean had overtaxed the reality near the doorway, and the classroom, the Dean, the books, the students, and that hideous mounted duck which the Dean had tried to throw into the void unsuccessfully ("I can't think with it staring at me!"), were now their own little universe.  
  
Bring back the picture of the lava lamp. The wax will all eventually settle back together. But it is extremely unlikely that it will sink back in the same spot. But it will sink back together  
  
* * *  
  
Ponder Stibbons stared. The Farrell Duck was the least remarkable creature he could have imagined. The stuffed version had looked much more majestic. This duck simply sat there. It was also slightly unnerving where it sat.  
  
"Buggrit," said Foul Ole Ron as Coffin Henry handed him a grimy sausage. The beggars were huddled around a whale oil drum which had some sticks and other junk in it and was blazing brightly. Off to one side was the quarry.  
  
The Duck Man.  
  
The Duck Man was sitting next to the drum and would occasionally toss a stick or broken board into it. Ponder stared. On his head was the Farrell Duck, which was napping quietly. No one seemed in the least bit surprised or interested by this phenomenon.  
  
"Hello," said Eskarina smith, who had simply walked by the staring Ponder. "I'm Esk, a wizard, don't ask, and I require duck feathers.  
  
"Oh, hello," said the Duck Man. "That's nice."  
  
"Couldn't you give me any?"  
  
"Nope. I haven't had a duck for anything in years."  
  
"Buggrit," affirmed Foul Old Ron.  
  
"But, there's a duck on your-" started Ponder, but Esk cut him off.  
  
"Anyway, I used to study ducks." Said the Duck Man, dreamily. "Fantastic creatures. And then I stopped. And the next thing I know I'm here telling Ron he can't eat something he found in the Ankh. Mazing, really. I have no idea what happened in the middle. Nope, haven't seen a duck in years."  
  
"Close your eyes," said Esk.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Esk let out a sigh of frustration, grabbed the duck, which had been sitting there for weeks without moving, and then only to quack, and yanked out a feather.  
  
"What was that noise?" The Duck man tried to turn around.  
  
"Nothing, nothing at all. Anyway, thank you."  
  
"John. John Farrell." And he shook their unresisting hands. 


	5. Prophesy

The ancient prophesy of Pseudoagatea goes like this:  
  
In the early times, One Sun Mirror, who remains to this day a great hero and can still be found on the 20-Ien coins, founded the Agatean empire. But there were others who fought for justice in the early days. One founded Fappondo, another the country then known as Dopamine, now known as Pseudoagatea. These countries enjoyed a relatively peaceful coexistence, until the emperor Five Burning Wheels was born. Five burning wheels revoked the then-active agreement between the three that each country was equal in the eyes of the other, and started demanding tribute from the citizens, and then moved in its military. There was never any war, but gradually Dopamine fell under Agatean control. Fappondo feared the same fate for itself and gradually shied away from the conflict. And Dopamine was gradually enslaved. The Empire took what it wanted and sent prisoners and outcasts over the Wall into what was gradually becoming a ruin of a country. There were rebellions; the empire put them down. Pseudoagatea, which once was relatively arid, was irrigated to produce the empire's rice needs. After years passed even the citizens stopped thinking of it as a country. But there was always hope that it would be freed. That was the prophecy. But is did not happen.  
  
The arrival of Pseudopolis in the year of the Malformed Garter Snake saw the last of freedom die on the Counterweight Continent. Pseudopolis only made things worse; in order to avoid a war with the Agatean Empire it promised the empire would still receive all of its tributes. This broke the peasantry once and for all, and the riots became more desperate. Finally, Pseudopolis broke, and Pseudoagatea, which it now called itself, was free. But some, too set in their ways to remember anything but the hardships of distant rule, wanted to keep hiding under the wing of the Empire. Foreign rule was miserable, they argued, why try freedom and just get annexed again? But some, though they stood in the minority, said the Dream could be true, even if the Prophesy had failed, and they could protect themselves from invasion. But there was disagreement, and a new war, a civil one, broke out. The Prophesy had a new chance. But it needed a hero. 


	6. Prophesy Continued

Disc-laimer: I don't own this, neither do you.  
  
* * *  
  
Ponder and Esk kicked open the door to the Hex Lair, as the sign made by Ponder said on the door, and were confronted by a somewhat worrisome sight.  
  
Ponder and Esk kicked open the door to the Hex Lair, as the sign made by Ponder said on the door, and were confronted by a somewhat worrisome sight.  
  
Ridcully was standing next to Hex and stomping on ants. The Lecturer in Recent Runes was yelling at Ridcully that he was doing this all wrong, and Ridcully was yelling back to shut up and keep stomping. The Bursar was sitting on cart that had appeared when Rincewind had vanished, and was carving a splendid landscape out of a gourd he had found in it. Hex was babbling about power levels being low.  
  
"Gentlemen-"  
  
"I hate ants! They eat otherwise perfectly good food!"  
  
"Gentlemen-"  
  
"They run the system. You're killing it!"  
  
"Gentlemen-"  
  
"And remember, use nice even strokes with your knife. Your trees should be happy trees!"  
  
"SILENCE!" That was from Esk, who was proud of Ponders belated attempts to stick up for himself but was equally aware they weren't working. The whole scene ground to a dead standstill, except for the ants and the Bursar, who kept humming to himself.  
  
"Look. Pseudoagatea is a really hot problem on the Disc right now," resumed Ponder, somewhat shaken. "Ankh-Morpork does not need a war there. We have no reason to send OUR troops over there to deal with a problem the Pseudoagateans should fix for themselves. So we MUST retrieve Rincewind and pretend none of this ever happened. I am going to fix this problem, and you are going to help me. We need to fix this thing, and we need to fix it fast. I've got the parts and the diagrams, but I can't do this alone. Whose the best scientist in this town." The wizards all immediately turned pale. "Fess up. It's a matter of national importance. Confront the patrician if we have to. This must be solved." The wizards stared. "NOW!"  
  
They all hustled out of the room.  
  
"Esk?" He said when they were gone.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Where the hells did that speech just come from?"  
  
* * *  
  
"And that's the prophecy?" Asked Rincewind.  
  
"Well, most of it," said Uyidako. "That was the prophecy, up until about a month ago when the Ephebians arrived. They had a similar prophesy, which seems to be in league with ours. There was a great Ephebian hero named Lavaeolus, who could do only what was right. He didn't always want to do it, and half the time it seemed like he could only do it if he wasn't trying. He denied he was anything special. It became his trademark. He hated his role in the world, and I have learned most of my Ephebian curse words from his manuscripts, that I have." She noted the shocked look on Rincewind's face, and mistook it for what she had just said, instead of the mentions of Lavaeolus. "Well, sometimes it's the only way to get the attention of a soldier. So we now believe there will be a hero from Ephebie who will liberate us from the shackles of oppression. And I must admit you pretty much meet the requirements."  
  
"Whaa."  
  
"I know," She said, and for an instant looked almost like she would say something he could get his mind around. "But don't worry. You'll either save the day or be killed trying. You see, the enemy has formed a ring around this city with a twenty-mile radius. There is no way out. So now I will show you around, that I will."  
  
* * *  
  
Current Patrician Lord Havelock Vetinari was sitting at his desk and seriously debating whether to read the newspaper or curl up with a good manual when the door of his office was kicked open* and the wizards burst in.  
  
"I demand to see the Patrician," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who had lost the ant battle and was trying to restore his self confidence."  
  
"Front and center," said Vetinari, looking up. "You are the wizards, I take it. Please remember that I am still not entirely trustful of you after that incident when I was a lizard."  
  
"Newt, actually," said the Senior Wrangler. Ridcully kicked him.  
  
"What; it's harder to make a newt than a liz-" Ridcully kicked him harder, and said,  
  
"Shut up! Besides you said you weren't there when that happened."  
  
"GENTLEMEN."  
  
"Oh, right," said Ridcully, giving the Senior Wrangler a final kick, " We need to see the Scientist."  
  
Vetinari frowned slightly.  
  
"Now we know he's up there, Havelock, and we need him to help us. It's very important."  
  
"You will do no such thing!" said Vetinari, pinking slightly.  
  
"Okay, have it your way. We pay these taxes OUT OF CHARITY to the state, and you still won't help us?"  
  
"No."  
  
"All right. What shade of NEWT do you want to be this time?"  
  
"Are you threatening me?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You can't make me tell you where he is."  
  
"True, but I can blow stuff up until I find out." He shot a fireball into the wall. Part of it collapsed, revealing a staircase. "Now see how easy that was?"  
  
The wizards walked up the stairs, and vanished from sight.  
  
Vetinari sighed and made a mental appointment with the stonemason.  
  
* Wizards, as you may have noticed, do this a lot. It's a habit formed when your scorch, scald, freeze, dismember, tear or slash you hands for any reason in your workday. 


	7. Strange People and Strange Lamps

Disc-laimer: Yeah right. I own the Discworld. Would I be writing Fan Fiction if I did?  
  
* * *  
  
Uyidako opened the door and walked out into the sunlight. Rincewind blinked.  
  
"I am the priestess of this village. You must refer to me as priestess."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"I am respected here, you may have noticed." Rincewind remembered his capture and nodded silently. "I am one half of the Throng sisters."  
  
"Throng sisters?"  
  
"Yes. My older sister and I fought the Pseudopolites when they tried to annex our country twenty years ago. I was fifteen then, and my sister was twenty. We freed hundreds of villages as fast as the Pseudopolites could capture them. We were unstoppable, that we were. I really thing Pseudopolis feared us. And then- my sister was killed by soldiers. I escaped, and have been a fugitive ever since." Rincewind couldn't see her eyes, but there were tears running down her cheeks. He fought his better judgment and put a hand on her shoulder. She whirled to face him. "An exile! This country is where the Agatean Empire sends is exile, and now I am and exile here too!" She calmed slightly. " The revolts began, and I helped throw off the yoke of fear from the people. But I want to be a free trading country with the rest of the world. I want to see the world. So I am with those who are sick of being ruled by anyone. The Ephebians help because they mined gold here with an agreement before the Civil War started. An agreement! The Ephebians took us seriously! They have been here since the beginning, and have tought us their system of democracy. We may try it if we win, or even survive this war. But all that happens is we loose more and more. The Ephebians are looking towards leaving. They stand little chance of making a profit even if they win this war. They have built a last ditch perimeter around Switch' Off. If this is breached, we are done for."  
  
"But how? The Ephebians have the best army on the Disc. How could they be looing so badly?"  
  
"They are up against forty foot tall bronze statues that move."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Come. I will show you."  
  
"Oh no you don't! I'm staying right here."  
  
Uyidako smiled, in a sad way, and Rincewind realized she was pretty. Not beautiful, but with a possibility of beauty.  
  
"The fighting will come to us soon enough. You may as well become familiar with it."  
  
* * *  
  
"Leonard? Leonard of Quirm?"  
  
The room was a jungle of half completed impossibilities and diagrams that might have been etched on the side of the sort of alien spacecraft you see in bad science fiction movies with names like "Revenge of the Son of the Cousin of the Bridesmaid of the Being." There was a yell from the next room over.  
  
":Hold on, I think I've got it, just a-" A bottle filled with blue liquid and something else shot through the doorway and hit the wall in front of Ridcully was an explosive force. A man stuck his head around the doorway.  
  
"Oh dear. That didn't work at all."  
  
"What was it supposed to do?" asked Ridcully, who was the first to get his breath back.  
  
"I had this champagne bottle lying around, and I stuck a candle in the top of it the way they do back in Quirm, but the candle melted and fell through. So it occurred to me that if I put water in and heat it from below the way might form blobs or something and float around. But is just blew up again. I guess the "Melted-wax-which-forms-blobs-which-go-up-and- down Lamp is a bust. Now what can I do for you.  
  
"We're wizards. And we're having this problem, back at Unseen University."  
  
Leonard of Quirm frowned. "Oh no. I don't do magic."  
  
"There's barely any magic in it at all," wheedled Ridcully, "And it has all sorts of tubes and pipes."  
  
Leonard's eyes glowed "Pipes?"  
  
"And more moving parts than you can shake a stick at. Want to come?"  
  
"But of course!" 


	8. The Walking Suits

Disc-laimer: See Previous.  
  
* * *  
  
Before we start, remember the lava-lamp reference a few chapters ago? I thought of that with help, and, unfortunately, the person who suggested this to me has passed away since I last wrote.  
  
BENE MEMORIAM: my Lava Lamp 1997-2003  
  
* * *  
  
Uyidako led Rincewind away from the village along a winding trail that was so unpredictable someone who was particularly squeamish would have gotten motion sickness. The jungle hooted and made noises in an uninterested way, and soon they were out on what could have been a swamp.  
  
It was a rice paddy, which was not currently being attended to but was instead guarded by a small cluster of the Throng Army and some of what could only have been the Ephebie marines. Uyidako and Rincewind walked along a path until they reached the island, which was only slightly above the water level and which was covered by a total of six sick looking trees.  
  
"Come over here. Hurry!" Uyidako threw Rincewind at the base of one tree, next to a marine who was behind something which looked like a crossbow with a plumbing. It was huge, and looked almost like a siege weapon, except that instead of a pull back string it had an iron pipe which appeared to take a string of arrows which were fed into it. Actually they were strung together and hanging out the side, but Rincewind made an educated guess.  
  
"Hi," said the Marine, without turning around. "I'm Ptroleus. We're waiting for an attack."  
  
"Won't they automatically shoot at this island?" asked Rincewind.  
  
"Nah. They thing we're over there-" the man pointed to a small island all the above-water roads lead to. It was cropped neatly and on it were sitting large carriage-like devices. They were large cages with cartwheels on the sides. But there were also large arms from the top that held in place giant pontoons on either side. An amphibious vehicle.  
  
"Yep," continued Ptroleus, "That island actually has a secret escape tunnel and is fortified with concrete from Morpork. It's considerably better defended than this here."  
  
"Then why aren't we over there?"  
  
"Because the enemy-" Suddenly there was a roar. It was the sound of something dangerously large moving impossibly fast. Over the horizon, which was rice paddies as far as could be seen, was a soldier. He was rather oddly dressed, Rincewind thought; head to toe in the same shade of blue- green. He'd heard of this being done in Lancre and other placed up the Ramtops. That was good. This was a scare tactic. If they were trying to scare him, perhaps their fighting skills weren't particularly good. That was a good sign. He continued watching, and there was something wrong with it. The enemy kept getting bigger. And bigger. He estimated he was a quarter mile off and they already looked twice the size of a normal person in ratio to the paddies.  
  
"I believe they speak for themselves," said Ptroleus.  
  
"What is it?" breathed Rincewind.  
  
"A Walking Suit."  
  
* * *  
  
"Ooooo!" was the first thing Leonard of Quirm said when he saw Hex. "What intricate skill, what detail!" He then stood still and quietly examined the tubes.  
  
"Can you fix it?" ventured Ponder after about half an hour of dead silence.  
  
"Hmm? Oh of course. I was just seeing how I could make it deduce taxes as well. Here." He took Ponder's feather, which was sitting in a glass case, and rewrapped the wire around it. He picked up some spare glass piped and began refitting then to make up for the old ones. Ponder stood amazed. He had been the only person who could understand Hex, and then the man was retrieved and after half an hour he knew just what to do. He fitted piece after piece into place and Ponder was amazed when the mirror display came back up. It was just where it had been left  
  
+++Transmit again? Yes= green switch No= orange switch+++_  
  
Leonard bumped something in the working and the screen read:  
  
+++INPUT= Yes+++  
  
+++NOW TRANSMITTING+++  
  
A second to late, Ponder realized what was happening.  
  
"Leonard, no!"  
  
The crossbow flashed green again. A second later, a huge piece of green copper appeared and crashed to the ground behind Ponder, filling most of the entire room.  
  
* * *  
  
The gigantic metal man was now perhaps a hundred yards off and was making a noise like a mine elevator. It was holding a giant copper spear, and was up to its knees in the paddies. Ptroleus yelled something to the person behind the pipe-bow, who hastily yanked out the string of arrows and fed in a new one. On the tips of the new arrows were lumps of thunder clay. Rincewind swallowed.  
  
"NOW!"  
  
The man behind the pipe-bow started turning a crank on the side, and the arrows shot out the end of it. Gattlegattlegattlegattlegattle. The arrows hit the suit and exploded, some times making holes in it. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, a large piece of the chest plate vanished, and Rincewind could have sworn there was something in its place for a second. The suit suddenly lurched, though the arrows had stop coming while the bowman reloaded it, and the suit fell over. It simply tipped sideways and back and fell over on its side in the rice paddy. There was dead silence.  
  
"What the hell?" said Ptroleus.  
  
"I think it's dead," said Rincewind. Uyidako and the various marines breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"Let's go check it out." 


	9. The Gattle Bow & the Flapjack Fish

Disc-laimer: Oh the hell with it.  
  
* * *  
  
"Oh great. We lost da Quirm."  
  
"Vetinari is going to be all over you for this, Mustrum."  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"And once we have finished carving our gourd, we can place a candle inside and-"  
  
"SHUT UP!" There was dead silence. "Okay. I must agree with Stibbons that we need to get Rincewind back, so we need a way to get there really, really fast. Now does anyone have any idea how we can get there WITHOUT using this contraption."  
  
There was a pause.  
  
"There is one way," said Esk, quietly.  
  
"Well, yes, what kind of a world would this be if there weren't. Let's go."  
  
"It's in the Beastaries.  
  
* * *  
  
There has evolved, in the great Nef, a plethora of anti-water fish. A really good example of this is the Flapjack Fish. ANY fish could fly, if it put its mind to it, but only the two-inch by twenty feet by twenty feet Flapjack Fish can hover. The Flapjack fish is believed to have evolved up from the sand dollar and, when the wind is right, can hover as high or low off the ground as it wants. It is possibly the largest Frisbee in the world and is a real bastard to ride. Esk was having trouble controlling its mind. The wizards were all standing on its back*, and Ponder was holding Esk's body while she was out. It is sort of like holding female undergarments while your wife is in the changing room. Esk was trying to figure out how to work the Flapjack fish, which had no sense of balance and had a brain function with no sense of balance or coordination. In short they were two hundred feet up and ten miles away from Ankh-Morpork.  
  
_____  
  
*Except for Ridcully, who had a tanning mirror and a lawn chair.  
  
* * *  
  
Ptroleus peered inside the hole in the Walking suit.  
  
"Antimony, keep the Gattle Bow up and if you see anything move, shoot it."  
  
"Why? I was only trying to adjust that one lever. Is that you, Mr. Ridcully?  
  
* * *  
  
Very quietly, in another part of the Jungle not too far away, there was a discussion underway.  
  
"What is the status of the Switch' Off Perimeter?"  
  
"We sent a walking suit over today."  
  
"How did it fair?"  
  
"I would not be surprised if it killed a hundred of them. We haven't heard back, but Switch' off cannot hold much longer."  
  
"I have kept my promise. I will find the leaders if they have survived, and when the time is right I will turn them over to you."  
  
"The Agatean Empire will honor you greatly for this."  
  
"And then, Pot Pan, we will have rid Pseudoagatea of foreign power, and the Aurient will be the Empire's alone." 


	10. Mustrum Ridcully's Discount House of May...

"Did you say that, Antimony?"  
  
"No sir."  
  
"In here. Can anyone tell me what just happened?"  
  
Ptroleus peered inside the hole in the suit. There was a large amount of copper framework, and a seat with an Agatean user and what Rincewind estimated to be the biggest control panel ever created for anything. On top of the man in the seat was another man, who had hit the first in a lopsided position and was now trying to stand up on some of the supporting bars. This man was definitely from Ankh-Morpork.  
  
"Hello," said Leonard of Quirm, "What happened?"  
  
At that point a bomb hit the Walking Suit.  
  
* * *  
  
The wizards arrived, reeling, back at the university. The only one who could stand properly was Esk, but she was still flapping and making weird noises signaling her incompatibility*. The cleaning staff** turned its head, and then went back to work.  
  
"Okay," said Mustrum Ridcully, "New plan."  
_____  
  
*Sort of like when you stick a Mac-formatted disk into a PC.  
  
**The cleaning BROOM had caught fire the previous week.  
  
* * *  
  
"What the hell-" said Ptroleus, but Uyidako had already grabbed him and Rincewind and were pushing them out the hole and onto the top of the suit.  
  
"What is happening?" said Rincewind.  
  
"It is the Rice Worm," said Uyidako, "We must get to highest ground, that we must."  
  
The group gathered on top of the upturned shoulder, and watched something in the paddy attack the suit. It looked like a giant tadpole, and where it was the muddy water of the paddy was darker. Rincewind did a quick check, and decided that it was as long as the Walking Suit. He gulped.  
  
"Antimony, reload the Thunder Clay Arrows," barked Ptroleus to the marine who had been standing guard on top of the shoulder since the suit had toppled.  
  
"Reloaded, sir."  
  
"FIRE!" The bow went gattlegattlegattlegattle and after a few explosions the worm turned around. Rincewind breathed a sigh of relief. The worm did a U-turn and came back toward the front of the toppled suit and jumped out of the water and over it. It was easily forty feet long and a dark, slimy black. It was the biggest eel Rincewind had ever seen. It had teeth five feet long, and Rincewind felt it eyeing him before it splashed down in the paddy on the other side and flashed off into the distance.  
  
"Good gods," said one of the other marines.  
  
"Well, it's gone now said Ptroleus.  
  
"Wrong," said Rincewind.  
  
The worm thundered back again. It slammed into the side of the suit so hard Ptroleus fell down and almost off the side. Antimony fired off the Gattle Bow. There was another thud and it slid backwards off the suit and into the water.  
  
"What do we do!" Shouted Rincewind to Uyidako.  
  
"We are either rescued or die."  
  
"We can't drive it off ourselves?"  
  
"No. We would need the Magnesium Rockets-" A bright, gooey red light flashed over their heads and landed in the water next to the eel. There was an explosion. The eel reared in the water one last time and fled in a straight line from the suit.  
  
"Did I get him?" Rincewind looked down. There was a tall bronzed-looking man in the boat. At first Rincewind thought he was Ephebian, but his features were Auriental.  
  
"Here comes trouble," said Ptroleus under his breath.  
  
"Xu Chu!" exclaimed Uyidako, and for the first time since he met her, Rincewind realized she might actually be happy to see someone.  
  
"Uyidako!" He jumped out of his boat and clambered up the side of the suit with ease. They embraced.  
  
"You saved us!" She hugged him tighter. "And we brought down a Walking Suit!"  
  
"So I see." He smiled. "How did you do it?"  
  
"Well, I was in Unseen University one minute, and the next minute I'm inside the thing and moving so fast that when I hit the guy inside it I knocked him out," said Leonard in approximate Agatean, who, up until then, has been making documenting the anatomy of the Rice Worm and how its structure could be adapted to mince carrots at high speeds.  
  
"I have heard of the Unseen University," said Xu Chu. "They study magic there, and must have sent you here by mistake." He noticed Rincewind for the first time.  
  
"And you?"  
  
"This is Rincewind," said Uyidako, cutting in. "He may, possibly, be the Savior of the Prophesy. He arrived magically in the town square and IMMEDIATELY informed us he was NOT the Great Wizard." For the first Time Xu Chu looked slightly angry, but it lasted only a minute, and then he smiled brightly and Rincewind.  
  
"Who knows," he said. "Come, let us go back to the village for celebration." He put his arm around Uyidako, and the group started back towards Switch' Off.  
  
And, for some reason he couldn't quite recognize, Rincewind wanted Xu Chu to take his arm away from Uyidako.  
  
* * *  
  
"But I can't possibly borrow the mind of THAT," said Eskarina. "It's impossible!"  
  
"I'm not asking you to borrow the mind of it," said Mustrum Ridcully, "I'll want to cooperate." He walked down the hall and opened the door to the Hex Lair.  
  
"All right," he said, "Come out, luggage on legs! I know you're- Bursar!"  
  
The luggage, which had slept through the entire event so far had now woken up. The Bursar had been left behind to finish his gourd. The luggage was now on its back and the Bursar was scratching its stomach.  
  
"Hello. Fine day for frying mousetraps, wouldn't you say?"  
  
"Luggage!" said Ridcully, who had long ago abandoned communication efforts with the Bursar, "We need you to help us." Nothing happened. "We know where Rincewind is."  
  
The Luggage emitted something of a sigh, rolled over, stood up, and walked over to Ridcully.  
  
"Wonderful. Let's g-"  
  
Ridcully had spun around and in the doorway was the palace aide he recognized as Drumknott.  
  
"Oh. Hi."  
  
"Okay, Mr. Ridcully, it's been six hours and the Patrician wants da Quirm back or else."  
  
* * *  
  
In Pseudoagatea, the sun was going down. Ptroleus turned to Rincewind.  
  
"I still don't entirely trust you- nothing personal- so why don't we finish our guided tour of the city and leave those two alone." He gave the happy couple an angry look.  
  
"You don't like them?" asked Rincewind in a tentative voice.  
  
"I don't like HIM. He's the luckiest person I've ever met. He never has any problems, he fell in love with Uyidako the minute he showed up here-"  
  
"Whaa!" Rincewind was trying to come of shock and made a strangled noise. "I mean, when did he get here?"  
  
"Bout two months ago. He just showed up. Nice fellow, really, but there's something about you just want to hit over the head with a shovel."  
  
"I know what you mean."  
  
"What was that noise you made for anyway?"  
  
"It's a long story. Do you believe in curses?"  
  
* * *  
  
"You HIT a PALACE AIDE!" shouted the Senior Wrangler, who was a beet color, "We are going to BE KILLED!"  
  
"Whaa," said Drumknott, who had been hit twice with Ridcully's staff and wasn't in much of a position to say anything else.  
  
"Relax. I have a plan."  
  
"Which is?"  
  
"We get in the Luggage and tell it to find Rincewind."  
  
"Good Gods."  
  
* * *  
  
"Shitty gods," remarked Ptroleus. "Did all that stuff really happen to you?"  
  
"Yeah. I might have left out the part where I gave Eric's parrot to the Ponce da Quirm-"  
  
"No, I can't say I remember that-"  
  
"But it's all true." 


	11. The Plain of the Pots

NOTE: You may or may not have noticed that I axed the first chapter and have made some minor readjustments. If you didn't that is perfectly fine.  
  
Disclaimer: I hate these things. Just refer to the beginning of the story for one, okay?  
  
* * *  
  
"He isn't going to fit, Arch Chancellor."  
  
"Sure he will." Mustrum picked up the still unconscious Drumknott and crammed him into the Luggage. He sank away and vanished."  
  
"Okay," said Mustrum brightly, "Who wants to go in next?"  
  
* * *  
  
The sun was going down in Turnwise Pseudoagatea. Rincewind walked with his hands on top of his head in front of Ptroleus.  
  
"So where are we going?"  
  
"Back to the Ephebian army base. There's a really good natural wonder up ahead."  
  
"Hmm. What do you do for entertainment?"  
  
"Animo!" said Antimony from the line with enthusiasm.  
  
"Quiet, Private," said Ptroleus.  
  
"What's Animo?" asked Rincewind.  
  
"Remember Moving Pictures from a few years back?"  
  
"You mean those things that basically funneled in creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions?"  
  
"Well, that's a harsh way of putting it, but yes. But the Pseudoagateans couldn't afford the painting imps, so they came up with a special kind of moving picture. The secret is, the Dungeon creatures can only get in if the characters in the Moving Pictures look like people. So we have hand animated Moving Pictures that DON"T look quite so much like people, and the Dungeon creatures just can't seem to get through. We call it Animo, which is short for Animated Moving Pictures. They're pretty interesting."  
  
"Fascinating, really. What was that natural wonder you talked about?"  
  
"Oh. It's right through this last clump of jungle. You're going to love this."  
  
Ptroleus proudly shoved aside a Banyan tree. Out in front was a field. And Rincewind couldn't believe what was in it.  
  
* * *  
  
"Get in, Ponder. Look, it doesn't hurt at all." Ridcully climber into the Luggage.  
  
"I don't know if this is such a good idea-"  
  
Ridcully grabbed his hand and yanked him into the Luggage. Esk shrugged and jumped in after them.  
  
The lid snapped shut.  
  
* * *  
  
"How on earth did this get here?"  
  
"Amazing, isn't it. They're's thousands of em. Most people actually took some of the smaller ones. I can't say I know much more, but it is food for thought.  
  
Rincewind just stood there. He had never seen so many pots in one place.  
  
The Plain of the Pots was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen in a lifetime that had included the Beginning of the Universe and Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler's sausage inna bun. There were big jar, little jars, and jars so big you could live in them. They were all built on the same design; a round one ended tube with a fat overhanging rim, and all made of some sort of green stone, possibly solidified clay. Thousands of green jars, all lying in a twenty-acre field in which nothing would grow but a sort of dead tan grass. Rincewind shuddered.  
  
"I never saw anything like that before," he said after a while.  
  
"Yeah. I wonder what kind of mason made pots like that."  
  
* * *  
  
PLEASE read and review! 


	12. NoName Base Camp

* * *  
  
"Right," said the Dean to the collected students, "Has anyone got an idea?"  
  
There was dead silence. The Dean wasn't used to talking to Students, and the students were all afraid of the Dean.  
  
"Right then. I'm going to try latching onto another universe then. The air in this one is getting kind of stuffy."  
  
* * *  
  
A piece of luggage rambled along the hills past Sto Lat and on towards Llamedos. It was a completely nondescript piece of luggage, except that it has hundreds of little legs and a dozen angry voices. But whereas the legs were all basically the same, the voices were quite different and actually holding a conversation.  
  
"Oh yes, this was a brilliant idea!"  
  
"Whoever said that is dealing with ME when we get out of this thing."  
  
"I doubt it," said Ponder, "I don't think any of us will be able to move their arms and legs when we get out of this thing."  
  
"Good point."  
  
"Does that mean I can say what I want about Ridcully then?" asked an anonymous professor.  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind trudged on through the Valley of the Pots. There wasn't as much to see now; the sun has set some three hours ago on the other side of the Disc, and its sluggish light was running back over the rim in Pseudoagatea.  
  
"So exactly what is a marine?"  
  
"After the almost-war between Al-Khali and Ankh-Morpork, some of us in Ephebie decided we needed a better army. So we started something called the Marines."  
  
"Why're they called marines?"  
  
"I dunno. I think one of the founders has a wife named Marin, but otherwise I guess we're supposed to be good at swamp combat. Anyway, it's becoming standard for young Ephebean men to either join the Philosophers or us when he gets old enough."  
  
"Who thinks this stuff up?"  
  
"I have no idea. Anyway, up ahead you will see our marine base. It's where we live, you see. We have all the comforts of home, except when we're doing patrol rounds."  
  
"Wonderful. Tell me, do you get attacked often?"  
  
"No. Not really."  
  
"Wonderful."  
  
* * *  
  
Pot Pan stood around a small map of the Agatean rim of the Disc. It was a small map in a small room. There was a small light on the ceiling that managed to illuminate the map for the four other figures in the room. Pot Pan himself stood in shadow.  
  
"Gentlemen, we are winning the war. We have control of continental Pseudoagatea. We also have most of Ting Ling. When the capital city Switch'off is captured, we expect the smaller island to fall into disarray. We will then move in for the kill."  
  
"I have twenty walking suits outside the city right now," said one man.  
  
"Very good, General Wekks.  
  
"King Prybar of Tsort has another shipment of crossbows on the way. We cannot allow the Ephebians to win any war at all."  
  
"Widdershins Pseudoagatea sends its sincerest thanks to King Prybar of Tsort."  
  
"I have two thousand troops ready to finish this war with victory, Lord Pan," said a third.  
  
"Most excellent, General Morch."  
  
"And I have a gift," said the final man. He was standing, unlike the others, and so his face was also hidden. "The Agatean Empire admires your isolationist ideals. We present you with a thousand horses."  
  
"Infinite thanks, Lord Hong."  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind, Ptroleus and the rest of the 3.14 I Hate Non-Repeating Decimals Marines* arrived back at the base. There was a sign over the entryway reading, in Ephebean characters:  
  
NO-NAME BASE CAMP  
  
POPULATION: MARINES  
  
And had been painted with an inexpert hand. Inside the camp were an infinite number of pitched green tents. They were obviously semi permanent, the giveaway being they were staked down with bars.  
  
"Welcome to No-Name Base Camp," said Ptroleus dryly. "We hope you enjoy your stay. You can go back to Switch' off in the morning. In the mean time, feel free to sample some fine whines, watch an entirely safe moving picture show, and cast your vote for a name for this place."  
  
"Vote?"  
  
"Very popular in Ephebie, the vote. We need a name for this place badly."  
  
_____  
  
*Pthagonal finally declared he had figured out the last digit of the Number Formerly Known as Pie.  
  
* * * 


	13. The Orange Agents

A/N: It became clear to me, and by now, possibly to you also, that this is going to be quite a long story. I will soon catch up with Disc Wars 6, the longest running fic at the moment, and my current estimate for total length is around twenty-five chapters. Please keep reading and reviewing, though. At this point it's all that keeps me going.  
  
* * *  
  
"So what do marines around here do for entertainment?" asked Rincewind, who had been unchained and was now politely examining a table map of the Counterweight Continent.  
  
"Well," said Ptroleus, taking off his helmet and exchanging it for a cap with sergeant's markings on it, we'll go see an Animo show soon. Sometimes we get a comedian or some pretty dancers. But generally we just polish our weapons and set fire to trash. We have a trash fire that's been going for six weeks now. That beats our closest competitors, the Second Marines, by two days."  
  
"Does Pseudoagatea have any wizards?"  
  
"Well, a few. Local lore has it that the strongest of the Disc's wizards lived here at one point. Some say they made the pots in the valley, and that they have some sort of power. No one's been able to find one yet, though most people have one in their homes."  
  
"So that's all that ever happens around here?"  
  
"Yeah. Oh, before I forget." He grabbed Rincewind by the arm and dragged him out to the crossroads between 3rd, 3.14 I Hate Non-repeating Decimals, 4th, and 5th marines sections of the camp, where there was a large megaphone located on the end of a stick. Ptroleus ran over to it, climbed the ladder to the mouthpiece, and yelled into it.  
  
"Would the Orange Agents please report to the 3.14 I Hate Non-repeating Decimals Marine Base immediately."  
  
* * *  
  
Uyidako sat with her arms around Xu Chu as they sat on her porch swing, watching the last of the Discworld's light dribble off the rim. It was as thick as bromine and pooled in places, forming light pockets that gradually evaporated.  
  
"I fear for the country," she said, quietly.  
  
Xu Chu hugged her tighter. "The war goes well, flower of beauty. We have one of their walking suits. Perhaps we can find a weakness they do not know of. Perhaps the scientist they call da Quirm can do it." He paused, and seemed to consider this.  
  
"What id it's not enough?" she asked with tears in her eyes. "I have tried so hard. The country has tried so hard. The Ephebians have tried so hard. We try and try. They burned our capital city to the ground. I loved Yusay Wat. And now, if they capture Switch' off, I shall have to kill myself. I couldn't bear it. We cannot hope to win with just Fappondo. If we lose, I am broken." She shuddered with sobs.  
  
"You still have me," said Xu Chu, and it was a mercy she could not see his eyes.  
  
* * *  
  
The Dean locked it. Gradually, through the open doorway, a new universe was coming in. They could see a hallway, with a great number of people with suits walking around talking to one another.  
  
"Where are we?" asked Omar, stepping out into the new universe.  
  
"Looks posh, doesn't it," said another student named Stu.  
  
"Well, I think we had better go find the owner."  
  
At that moment, a particularly dense crowd of people rushed by."  
  
"Mr. President, wait!"  
  
"What about the resolution. Should we start the strikes?"  
  
A large man in the front of the group spun around and faced the rest of them. He didn't notice the Dean or the Students in the background.  
  
"We will settle this in my office!" They rushed off again.  
  
"Well we certainly aren't on the Discworld anymore," said Omar after a while.  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"You catch the tall guy's name? Lyndon Johnson. I don't think there are any leaders where we come from with that kind of name."  
  
* * *  
  
The Orange Agents were gathered around the room. In the center were Ptroleus and Rincewind.  
  
"Um, hi," said Rincewind.  
  
"Rincewind, these are the Orange Agents."  
  
"We're called that because of the uniforms the Ephebians give us," said one, languidly. "All the blue dye comes out of the brown cloth and they turn orange. Rincewind had to agree that this was true.  
  
"Still working on that one back in Klatch," said Ptroleus. "Boys, this is Rincewind. Uyidako thinks he might in fact be the wizards of the prophecy."  
  
The Orange Agents looked at Rincewind with considerably more interest.  
  
"Hi." Said Rincewind again.  
  
"We,' said one agent, are the descendants of the great wizards of the past," said one.  
  
"You mean wizards have children?" it was Rincewind's turn to look surprised.  
  
"Of course not."  
  
"Oh. Okay."  
  
"The women do that part."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Anyway," said Ptroleus, "To make a long story short, the Orange Agents are being trained to fly into enemy encampments and shoot fireballs at them. We're still working on that."  
  
Outside, a voice funneled through the speaker on a stick cut in. "The Animo Moving Pictures show for the 3.14 I Hate Non-repeating Decimals Marines has begun. If you are in that platoon, feel free to come and watch."  
  
"Oh boy!" said one of the Orange Agents, and as one unusually dressed man the rushed out the door before Ptroleus could stop them.  
  
"Come on," he said, "Let's try to get a good seat." 


	14. Animo!

Ch.14  
  
* * *  
  
The deepest point on the Discworld is the Lavaeolus Trench, which runs along the cost of the Counterweight Continent, just Hubwards of Bes Pelargic. Devices that could plumb its depths would not be officially declared feasible for another hundred years. But one was already there.  
  
The Luggage kicked up crusted sulfur compounds around the bases of heat vents eight miles below the surface of the ocean. The pressure was two tons per square inch. The visibility was a quarter of an inch. The things that lived here had evolved under pressures sufficient to implode things that normally lived even a mile above it.  
  
And the Luggage killed one of these things, ate it in one bite, and lumbered on.  
  
* * *  
  
Leonard of Quirm was sitting in the driver's seat of the Walking Suit, and fiddling with the operational controls. It all appeared to be controlled by magical ropes running out from the hand and feet controls. These did not particularly interest Leonard, who was instead examining the flamethrowers. The flame-throwers contained Ephebean Fire, the most dangerous fire weapon know to man, troll, or dwarf. But Leonard could see that if you tweaked this and that-  
  
-You had something that, if filled up entirely with the Fire, could burn all of Ting Ling to the ground overnight.  
  
And, with no one to tell him to do otherwise, he began modifications.  
  
* * *  
  
"We can strike this time tomorrow," said Pot Pan decisively.  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind was seated between Ptroleus and Antimony in the clacks theatre.  
  
"This is a new one," said Ptroleus. "Just in from Valen Tine over on Fappondo."  
  
The picture machine started clicking. On the screen there appeared the words:  
  
Laurel Leaf Productions  
  
In Ephebean and Pseudoagatean script. And then:  
  
WHAT I DID ON MY VACATION  
  
Based on the works of Twoflower  
  
* * *  
  
Rincewind ate his complementary morning Kappa Rations with a stunned look on his face.  
  
"I still can't believe they made a Moving Picture about my life," he said in a dazed tone.  
  
"He make it big?" asked a passing marine.  
  
"No," said Ptroleus, who was seated next to Rincewind at the breakfast table, "We think he's in shock. That's the thirty-first time he's said that this morning."  
  
"Well, I think the drawings of you were a fair representation," said Antimony. Rincewind turned to him.  
  
"Is my head really pentagonal when seen from the front?"  
  
"No. That's Animo for you. They all look like that."  
  
"Okay. I'll buy that. But the eyes! The eyes took up most of my head!"  
  
"Again, that's Anime for you. Besides, weren't the special effects scenes great? Admit it, you pissed you pants when the dragon vanished and your Point of View dropped like a stone toward Klatch."  
  
"I LIVED THROUGH THAT STUFF!"  
  
"Perhaps," said Ptroleus gently, "we should have some training exercises with the Orange Agents."*  
  
________  
  
*Kappa rations are 2% caffeine. Rincewind had had three. 


	15. Havelock Vetinari and His Amazing Thaumi...

*  
  
The luggage came ashore somewhere about a dozen miles Rimwards of Bes Pelargic, and continued the mission on foot.  
  
*  
  
Rincewind stepped outside. The sun wasn't over the Rim yet, and it was chilly. Marines got up two hours before sunrise. The Orange agents were lined up in front of him and Ptroleus, who was holding a pole with a lantern on the end.  
  
"This," he said, "Will be your target. You will get up in the air and shoot at it." He handed it to Rincewind, who dropped it and used all his self- control not to jump up and down on it.  
  
"Why don't you go stick that in the ground over there," said Ptroleus, looking at Rincewind uneasily. He did so.  
  
*  
  
Uyidako awoke. She was sleeping on her palette in her shack. Switch' off was silent, and if it hadn't been for the six by three deep craters in the ground and the scorched vegetation, you would hardly know there was a war on. No that it mattered. They were going to have one last really good battle, and after that one side was doomed to inevitable defeat. She'd seen the charts on the marines; she'd heard talk among the villagers. She was not going to be the first free leader of this country and then lose it. Her sister had dreamed of reunification; she dreamed of freedom. And they had given their lives for the same cause.  
  
That wasn't uncommon; troops on opposing armies often gave their lives for the same cause, too.  
  
*  
  
Author's note: If you have a map of the Discworld, please take it out and examine it.  
  
On the Rimwards side of the Counterweight Continent is the largest region of land that on that side of the continent not under Agatean control. This is due to the fact that One Sun Mirror was somewhat short of stone when he built the Great Wall.  
  
Damn.  
  
This area is Pseudoagatea. For centuries, the Agatean empire scoffed at it and sent the exiled there.  
  
But then, the Pseudopolites discovered huge deposits of tin, lead, and magnesium. They also discovered vast flat tracts of desert. They hired powerful wizards and turned the place into a swamp by magic. This isn't hard. Getting rid of a swamp is hard.  
  
And they planted rice, and basically enslaved the Agatean exiles, who were really pissed.  
  
They overthrew the Pseudo-government and tried to put together a decent country. It didn't work. There were some who had been milking that government, and went fawning to the Agatean empire.  
  
Help us, and we'll do business together. The Agateans agreed. Those became the Widdershins Pseudoagateans.  
  
On the other half, Nationalism was strong. They wanted a free trade system with the outside world. No sale.  
  
That was ten years ago. This had to end now.  
  
*  
  
Havelock Vetinari knew this. He read the papers, and occasionally had their offices burned to the ground. But only if necessary. Generally, he liked them. He likes the Crossword puzzles the best.  
  
Today he wasn't doing Crossword puzzles. Today he was reading the line- head, which read  
  
Extra! Extra! Band of Morpork Wizards caught trying to sneak into Widdershins Pseudoagatea! War with A - M Imminent!  
  
He put down his paper. This was going to be a bad day; there was no clean way out of this. He was going to have to use The Firecracker.  
  
Leonard of Quirm had designed The Firecracker about a month before he disappeared. Vetinari had had one look at the plans and had seen that they were so vital to national security that he had better leave them in plain sight lest he arouse suspicion among the spies he knew to be in the building.  
  
The most powerful explosive on the Disc was Thunder Clay. This was uncontested. But is had been concluded by Ponder Stibbons that every pound of fissionable Octiron was as powerful as a ton of the clay. Quirm had read this in Alchemy News (Motto: 'The Weekly Newsmagazine of Explosions') and designed a bomb in which such an explosion was possible. It consisted of shells of Octiron being smashed together at high speeds by Thunder Clay.  
  
He had called it The Firecracker. Ponder Stibbons had called it The Thaumic Bomb.  
  
Vetinari had had it built and then left in the entryway of the palace, where the passers by concluded it was some sort of statue.  
  
Vetinari was going to use it to kill the wizards. He didn't particularly like them, and they could probably stop anything else.  
  
They were a threat to national security. That was that. In eighteen hours they would be dead. 


	16. Another Damn Chapter

The training with the Orange Agents had ended about two hours ago*, and Rincewind went to see Ptroleus. The rest of the country seemed like it was falling apart anyway. He found him on the docks near where the first strike in which they had captured the Walking Suit had been. Rincewind noticed it was no longer there. Funny, that. The late had an average depth of about six feet, which ensured that no major navel battles were going to be held there, and the boats that DID exist were long, shallow gondola-like things that were-  
  
-Currently being plated with what looked like corrugated iron.  
  
_____  
  
*After totaling the laundry building in what was later referred to as the Zipper Raid.  
  
_____  
  
What the hells?  
  
"Ptroleus?"  
  
"Hm?" The marine, who had been overseeing the plating of one called- Rincewind looked at the side and translated the Pseudoagatean characters (which where similar to Agatean characters)- the Haddox.  
  
"What is this?"  
  
"Oh. Leonard of Quirm left me this handy little note that said we could reinforce these things with iron and make them stronger. I've never seen anything like it. I think this could delay our inevitable destruction."  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
"Oh, didn't you hear? We've intercepted what they're calling the Zuckerman Semaphore. Sonar Zuckerman caught it when he was checking to see if anything had come in for us; the semaphore operators here don't leave their towers if they can help it." He looked glum. "The Tsortians and the Agateans and the other half of this ruined country have all ganged up and are going to pull out all the stops on our account. Kind of interesting, really. These countries are all going to a great deal of trouble to make sure we die. I don't think I've even had anyone go to these lengths to do something to me." He cheered up. "BUT, with Ephebean Fire and these armor plated boats and those rocket arrays they're preparing back in town and all that good stuff, maybe we can pull it off and live."  
  
"What would we need to do to pull it off?"  
  
"Well. Lessee, you'd have to" he began counting on his fingers "take back the rest of this island, sink most of the incoming fleet, waste about a third or so of their troops and, if you really wanted to get the message across, you'd do it all in one battle."  
  
"But we couldn't possibly do that."  
  
"Sure you could!" It was Leonard of Quirm, who walked up behind them with no warning and clapped them both heartily on the back, which caused Rincewind to instinctively curl up into a little ball. "I've finished modification on the Walking Suit, and I've hidden it where no one can find it."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"I . . . damn it. Oh well, when you need it, just yell into this little thing." He handed a pocket watch to Ptroleus. "You just need to yell into this and it will come. One of your Orange Agents made it at my request."  
  
He walked off.  
  
*  
  
Two hundred miles off the coast, a flotilla was bearing down on them. It had enough ships to ensure that even if they lost, there was going to be an artificial island made out of the wrecks for some time to come. They hailed from Tsort and the Agatean Empire and Widdershins Pseudoagatea. There were several hundred of them. And, on one of them, Mustrum Ridcully was just about to snap.  
  
He and the other wizards, as well as Drumknott, were chained to the wall of the hold of a mass-produced boat called B-9.  
  
"Who told that thing WHERE in Pseudo-bloody-agatea we were going?"  
  
Ponder started in. "I-"  
  
"DON'T TALK. I'm working up a rant here. You have doomed us all and precipitated a WAR between these . . . PEOPLE and Ankh-Morpork."  
  
"Actually, sir, I can contact the university and-"  
  
"No you can't. They're too far away, and besides-"  
  
A voice in Ponder's pant's pocket spoke up. It had a hissing, crackling tone to it.  
  
"Is anyone there? All I'm seeing is red."  
  
"That's my robe," said Ponder, who jerked his hip. His shatterproof crystal ball came flying out and bounced to the other side.  
  
"Hi. This is Victor Tugelbend."  
  
"I though we threw you out!" shouted Ridcully.  
  
"Actually, no. I missed the day of the exam and came back. Sorry about that. Anyway, I've been trying to reach you for hours. The signal was jammed."  
  
"Oh, that's probably just the shielding effect of TWO TONS OF SWORDS IN THE NEXT HOLD," said Drumknott with a hint of panic in his voice.  
  
"Well, we were brought over here, but they took our luggage on legs and threw it over the side chained to the spare anchor when they picked us up and it tried to kill them. They were not happy."  
  
"Luggage on legs?"  
  
"Yes. Long story."  
  
"Ah. Anyway, do you know any sort of weapon that gives off thousands of Thaums?"  
  
"No. Why?"  
  
"Well, this glider left this morning with this big iron egg strapped to the bottom of it, and we all watched it take off and I had a bag of Magic Malt Balls in my pocket and they MELTED."  
  
"So?"  
  
"It's cloudy here. Anyway, this had never happened before, so I bought another bag and put them next to lumps of Octiron, and none of them even came CLOSE to melting them as fast as whatever this thing was. There had to be, and I've checked with Hex here, FIVE TONS of Octiron on that thing."  
  
"Hm."  
  
"It sounds like, well, quite frankly, your Thaumic Bomb."  
  
There was an appropriate pause. "You mean, someone BUILT ONE?"  
  
"Seems that way. They had this huge glider being towed behind a Pointless Albatross. It was pretty neat, I gotta tell you." He remembered that Ridcully was watching, and put on a more appropriate air. "So, I though you should know. Where are you anyway?"  
  
"Pseudoagatea." Ponder's face was almost impossibly pale. "I think they're coming to Thaum Bomb US."  
  
*  
  
R&R 


	17. Yet Another Damn Chapter

Rincewind was back in the village. He was going to get out. He just had to find a way. He picked up a newspaper off the stack on the pier and glanced at it absentmindedly as he walked. Getting out wouldn't have been hard if everything starting from the beer barrels up wasn't being outfitted as a boat for the fight. He HAD to get out. There were storm clouds on the horizon. There were always storm clouds on the horizon. But these looked different. Malignant. Evil. No, the puzzle said the word had to be 8 letters. Sinister, that was it. He looked again. The storm was BIG.  
  
The Orange agents had told him that this had once been arid, and that magic had made it a swamp.  
  
Rincewind paused. THE ORANGE AGENTS. THEY could get him out of here!  
  
He ran off towards the marines' base.  
  
He had been so close in his logic. The key was not the Orange Agents, but the magic.  
  
*  
  
Uyidako was having one of THOSE days. One of the days when it's make-it or break-it time.  
  
They might just make it.  
  
The Pseudoagatean Rocket Batteries were nearing completion. There was a good chance they could be loaded by the time the war started.  
  
By the time the war started. She laughed in her head. As if war was something that got updated daily in the newspapers.  
  
Now where had Xu Chu gone?  
  
*  
  
Banking over the ocean was the Magnolia Guy, the Disc's most advanced glider.  
  
It was possibly the only thing in the past decade of any major significance NOT thought up by Leonard of Quirm or an Ephebian philosopher. Its inventor was a florist in Sto Lat, who had invented it to drop payloads of insect- repellant on his cabbage crops when the root fly outbreaks got REALLY bad. Unfortunately, he was a lousy farmer and was forced to take up floristry. The invention may have killed the insects, but it by no means made him a better farmer. There's a moral in there somewhere.  
  
The man flying it was, of course, the magnolia guy himself. He probably could have grown rich on sails of his gliding crop-powdering device, had it not been so fiendishly complicated that even Leonard of Quirm had given up on trying to simplify it.  
  
It had been slightly redesigned for dropping a single object. All you had to do was pull lever 58-B instead of lever 87-Q when you went through the five-lever bombing sequence. Simple. The Magnolia Guy was also his code- name because, let's face the facts; you had no chance of getting a date when you told her your name was Thaddeus Dike. Thaddeus was well aware of this fact, and knew that Magnolia Guy wasn't much better, but he'd take it.  
  
Strapped to the belly of the craft, which had disengaged from its pulling albatross some six hours ago and was still going strong, was the Little Bastard. The Little Bastard was the bomb. Usually there was more than one, and they could be fired in sequence. But today, there was only one. It was heavy, too. But the Magnolia Guy was built to take heavy weights. You needed a LOT of pesticide to kill some of the root fly strains that were emerging.  
  
*  
  
Rincewind was out in the Plain of the Pots now. He couldn't find the Orange Agents, and he was starting to go through his panic-prepping stage, in which he repeatedly told himself a) He wasn't going to die yet, and b) Don't pee your pants.  
  
He heard voices, and ducked behind the nearest pot, which was twelve feet high and at least two or three inches thick. This would buy him about ten seconds if a conventional weapon were used on it, and about five if it was Ephebian Fire.  
  
"I'm sure I heard someone come through here."  
  
"Not possible. Let's go over there. I've got a shelter set up where we can see them, but they can't see us."  
  
*  
  
Ridcully was mulling the problem over in his head with a hammer. If someone was BUILT a Thaumic Bomb, and used it, why, they could-  
  
"How big an area could they blow up?" he was calmer know since the terror had set in and washed away his anger.  
  
"NOOKE, you mean?"  
  
That was a word from the essay. It stood for Nice and Orderly Outright Killing of Everything.  
  
"Yes, NOOKE. What will happen if that thing goes off?"  
  
"Well, it should leave a nice big circular crater with a high random magic rating. NOOKE-ing would kill everything for a certain distance from the epicenter of the explosion, and make it uninhabitable for millennia to come."  
  
"What's a millennia?"  
  
"Oh, about three or four pounds," said Drumknott, who then exploded with cackling laughter. The others looked at him uneasily.  
  
"It's a very long time. Anyway, it'd be like when the Sourcerors brought the world down on their heads years ago, and we had to start civilization all over again."  
  
"Oh. So, how are we supposed to get out of here and save the world?"  
  
"I have an idea." It was Eskarina Smith, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the hold and not saying much since she had been captured. Actually, she wasn't saying much since she had been knocked unconscious by the sailor who tried to carry her off to a private part of the ship to do private things, she was sure, when she had kicked him in the groin.  
  
"You do?"  
  
"Yes. But it won't be easy. All we have to do is kill twenty or thirty of the Pseudoagateans and take over the ship."  
  
*  
  
The glider banked over Bes Pelargic at a high enough altitude to escape detection.  
  
The fleet pulled closer toward Switch' Off, the last open point on Ting Ling not held by the Agateans or their Pseudoagatean allies. Of course, the island of Fappondo with its provincial capitol of Valin Tine would still be free, but their will would be broken.  
  
The Orange Agents were actually off getting drunk in one of the bars in Switch' Off.  
  
Vetinari pursed his hands at his desk and wondered where Drumknott was.  
  
Rincewind inched out from behind his jar, saw a look long stick insect looking at him, lost his resolve and DID pee his pants.  
  
The luggage ambled along the ocean floor. It was getting really pissed.  
  
Uyidako wondered where Xu Chu was.  
  
The Haddox was finished with the plating process and was moved out of the way for the next boat to be overhauled.  
  
The Animo theatre sat silent. Some soldiers started prying the roof up with claw hammers to use as boat shielding.  
  
Leonard of Quirm suddenly had the brilliant idea of making a box machine with little pumps in the front, which would dispense the beverage of your choice when you inserted a quarter.  
  
And Lord Hong sat in his boat. He had finished his meeting a few hours back and was sailing for Pseudoagatea, where we would be watching the battle from a distance.  
  
*  
  
Rincewind bolted through the door of the Switch' Off semaphore office. The man standing there was, according to his nametag, the Sonar Zuckerman he'd heard about earlier. He was a man in his twenties, tops, who wore glasses, and was drinking what Rincewind recognized from various marketplaces as a Berry High-high.  
  
"Quick, I need to send a semaphore to Ankh-Morpork."  
  
Sonar set down his Thigh-high. "You can't."  
  
"What do you mean, I can't."  
  
"Well, I was just checking the semaphore tower, and-"  
  
"Yes, I know, you found a semaphore saying we're all going to die."  
  
"Well, yes, but not only that. The guy was shot dead lying slumped over at his post. They all were, in all the towers. They're all dead. Besides, the only way to signal across the ocean is with a huge mirror, and I bet that's been smashed too. We're isolated.  
  
There was a pause. "So we're trapped."  
  
"Yes sir. Would you like a Thigh-high?"  
  
Pause. Rincewind had actually gotten through half of a Thigh-high once, before whoever had been chasing him then had caught up, and he had liked it."  
  
"Sure."  
  
They drank to the brevity of human life.  
  
* 


	18. End for the Wizards

A/N: I'd just like to say a few things- beside the fact that I don't own the Discworld.  
  
You can skip this if it bores you.  
  
Pseudoagatea is an epic. I knew that from the get go. I hope it doesn't intimidate the reader with its size, but if it's funny enough, who cares?  
  
That's the funny thing about me. My stories come in 2 sizes: one-shot and whopping epic.  
  
Also, I have absolutely no idea how many chapters this thing has. This thing will appear to you as Chapter 18, even though the story will say that (if this is the current last chapter), the total is 17 chapters. And on my hard drive, it's Discworld 5.19.doc. You see, my stories are like this: Fandom name (Discworld), followed by the story number for that fandom (5), and the chapter for that story (.19)  
  
What the hells?  
  
Enjoy the show.  
  
*  
  
Uyidako smiled outright. Maybe they were all going to die, but some of the magical redundancy loops built into the land mines, rockets and Ephebian- flame-throwers would make them almost impossible to handle or fight, that they would. She felt genuinely bad for all of the poor bastards who were going to die when the hose from the flamethrowers cut loose.  
  
She needn't have worried. It they didn't win the war, Magnolia Guy would leave most the surrounding countryside a nice, bald, dead wasteland.  
  
Bummer about that. It looked really lush. You just didn't that kind of lush in Ankh-Morpork. He looked out over the countryside.  
  
He glanced at his watch. He was rather curious what would happen. Nobody had explained to him.  
  
*  
  
"So, we've got to take over the boat by force, then somehow get out ahead any warn everybody of the impending disaster?" Drumknott had taken a few of the Bursar's dried frog pills, and looked as though he'd felt batter when insane.  
  
"Yes. We've got to get ahead and semaphore them NOT to drop Ponder's Thaumic Bomb so they don't kill us all."  
  
"Umm?" That was Victor, who had been listening to the conversation through the crystal ball link-up.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I could, umm, actually run over to the palace and try to talk some sense into them."  
  
"That's a good idea, yes."  
  
"I'll go and do that then."  
  
*  
  
Vetinari looked at his watch.  
  
5.  
  
4.  
  
3.  
  
2.  
  
1.  
  
The bomb was dropped, and Ridcully and those other pompous bastards were GONE.  
  
He allowed himself a small, brief smile.  
  
*  
  
"They /shot/ at me! They had the crossbows out and anything. I actually hit Vimes with a fireball, but I don't think they got the idea." This was Victor, five minutes after his last conversation, talking into his crystal ball.  
  
Suddenly, there was a bright, white flash, and the crystal ball went dead on Victor's end.  
  
*  
  
Vetinari's instructions to the Guard had been clear. It anything that even looks remotely like a wizard comes near the palace, shoot it. Take no prisoners.  
  
He didn't want to have to exterminate them all, but he wasn't above it. He hoped they would get the idea and leave him alone.  
  
*  
  
Fortunately for the residents of Switch' off, the Magnolia Guy wasn't really on the ball, and through a quirk in someone else's planning, they were all still alive. Actually the fault could alternately be traced back to Vetinari, but there wasn't a man on the Disc who would say so.  
  
What had happened: Vetinari had used a ruler and a slide rule and calculated, with almost dead-on accurately, the time it would take the Magnolia Guy to get to Switch' off, at which time he would drop the Firecracker. What he HADN'T figured for was the light-zone change.  
  
The slow-moving light of the Discworld ensures that there are different light-zones, where the sunlight travels over the world starting in the east at dawn and flowing across the surface slowly until it drizzles off the other side hours later.  
  
In Pseudoagatea, it was high noon, but in Ankh-Morpork it was 7 PM*, and Vetinari was confident that the wizards and most of that corner of the world were now a crater in the ground radiating Thaums into cold, emotionless space. So, because he hadn't told the Magnolia Guy to set HIS watch ahead as he went, they were quite alive.  
  
For the next seven hours, anyway.  
  
__________  
  
*Past-middle (of the Disc).  
  
*  
  
Vetinari was planning his moves very, very carefully. He never used magic for anything, period. He didn't think of himself as unable to use magic- though he was. It was really a matter of 'this is/is not a good idea', and all the scenarios involving magic had ended in fireballs.  
  
No. He was going to fight of the wizards when they came for him. They would come for him. But it was either fight the wizards or fight the Agatean Entente when they figured out who they can captured on their soil, and he KNEW the wizards could be beaten. How else had his predecessors kept them in line all these years?  
  
The only thing he had EVER built involving magic of any kind was the Firecracker, and you really couldn't call it magic. There was the Octiron, but there were no spells or drippy candles or moonlight rituals. There was a straightforward explosion.  
  
*  
  
"So we're going to take over the ship, and then what?" esked Ponder  
  
"I'm not really sure," pondered Esk  
  
"I can't believe you dropped the crystal ball overboard," said Ponder to Ridcully, who had grabbed it in order to get up close and personal with the truant Tugelbend when he came back on the line. He had, in effect, temporarily reduced the thousands of miles between the two of them, by about six inches, and then lost his grip on it. "You drop something, and it automatically finds a little hole in the floor and leaves. Why don't we just sit here and wait to die?"  
  
"Because that's against my dignity as a wizard who would sooner blow himself up then wait for his enemy to do it for him."  
  
"It that really our creed?" asked Ponder weakly.  
  
"I don't know, but I say we take over the boat for the hell of it. It's not like we've got anything better to do with our time."  
  
*  
  
Rincewind was running back through the Plain of the Pots. The Orange Agents had last been seen not in the marine's base but in the town.  
  
He was on it.  
  
Damn, these were BIG pots. He kept seeing them everywhere he went. He'd seen some of the smallest ones were used as chamber pots and ashtrays.  
  
But here, HERE were the true giants, pots you could fit into, no problem.  
  
He wondered why anyone would make pots that big.  
  
Then he rushed on.  
  
*  
  
Deep on the ocean floor, the luggage was really, really pissed. They had tied a lump of iron to it, and then thrown it overboard to sink. They would pay.  
  
Its temper was not at all improved by the fact that the raised outside pressure had given it something along the lines of a headache.  
  
It had hit bottom twenty minutes ago and when it came aground it was going to BREAK something.  
  
It snatched up a small falling sphere as it went. See, it had already shown that little ball who was boss. It's internal components filed away Ponder's crystal ball.  
  
*  
  
R&R  
  
Also, if you don't think you're getting all the references to the wars and stuff, don't worry- I'll put together a hidden-jokes page in the last chapter for your convenience.  
  
Mobius Shadow 


	19. I can't even figure out which chapter th...

I'm cranking out these chapters as fast as I dare without compromising quality, which, judging by the fact that there are people who are still discovering this thing and reading it from start to finish (should there ever be one), is high.  
  
*  
  
The Magnolia Guy glanced at his watch.  
  
6:33 minutes till he dropped the Bomb.  
  
He wondered again what kind of explosion would result.  
  
*  
  
Uyidako couldn't find Xu Chu anywhere, and it was starting to bother her.  
  
Not quite as much as watching Leonard of Quirm put together a frothing drinks machine out of spare pipes and an Ephebian Fire-thrower, but close.  
  
"Leonard?"  
  
"Yes, miss?"  
  
"What are you going to do with that?"  
  
"Well, when you put in a 20-Bong coin and pull this crossbow trigger, it dispenses hot chocolate. Assuming we can find some chocolate. I wonder if I can make some out of the plants you have growing around here?"  
  
"You put in a coin in and it gives you hot chocolate?" She knew what chocolate was; it was one of the things you could get with an open-market economy.  
  
"Yes."  
  
She smiled. She couldn't remember when she'd last smiled, but here was this funny little man building a hot chocolate machine hours before the battle that would decide the fate of a country. Or two countries, if their side won.  
  
Leonard grinned back. "I shall call it," he cleared his throat, "The machine which dispenses hot drinks to Pseudoagatean Misses, since I think the men all drink beer."  
  
"Pseudoagatean Mrs.?"  
  
"Misses being plural of miss. Look." Leonard took one of his paint brushes and wrote  
  
PSEUODOAGATEAN MISS  
  
On the front of the tank.  
  
"Oh. I think I like that. Pseudoagatean Miss Hot Chocolate. It sounds very pleasant."  
  
"I guess that makes you Miss Pseudoagatea then."  
  
*  
  
Rincewind had confirmed Leonard's theory about men liking beer. The Orange Agents were slumped over at the bar of one of the smaller drinking establishments in town. Most of the big ones had burned like torches when the Agateans bombed them, so all the remaining establishments were quite packed.  
  
He found them, and ran over.  
  
"Quick, do you know how I could get out of here before we get our asses bombed?"  
  
"Nope," said the nearest Agent. "If we'd known we'd be gone by now."  
  
"Don't you want to stay and fight?"  
  
"No. I think I'll just sit here and if I'm alive at the end, good, if not, I'm certainly not going to feel it happen." He reached groggily for his latest drink, a martini, and sitting up and putting on an air of dignity, missed his mouth with it and threw it over his shoulder.  
  
*  
  
Leonard of Quirm was carefully concocting a paste made largely of powdered soybeans. He had added various other ingredients, including some he'd had to invent, and now had a passable chocolate. He poured himself a frothing cup while Uyidako loaded the last of the rocket batteries.  
  
*  
  
Lord Hong's ship quietly swung around into a cove about two miles Widdershins of Switch' off, and docked next to a small broken down building. Lord Hong stepped nimbly out onto the crumbling pier and scuttled into the building, closely followed by his guards. Then there was silence.  
  
*  
  
The Magnolia Guy glanced again at his watch. 6:24 minutes. He pulled out an older copy of Alchemy News.  
  
He glanced over a few articles. It is worth wondering how the future might have been different had he noticed the one titled 'Thaum Bomb? Leading wizard postulates the possibility of splitting the Thaum.'  
  
Or if Ponder had ever noticed he had been referred to as a 'leading wizard'.  
  
*  
  
The Luggage had finally bitten off the rope holding the weight, and floated to the surface.  
  
It was about fifty miles behind the fleet, and it suddenly decided that now was as good a time as any for revenge.  
  
It began to close the gap.  
  
*  
  
Uyidako sipped Leonard's beverage gingerly, then in gulps. It was almost like chocolate.  
  
"Would you believe the main ingredients are soy and figs?" said Leonard.  
  
*  
  
Rincewind had managed to get the Orange Agents to their feet and was helping them walk over to the beach, where he walked them out onto the end of the pier and pushed them into the water.  
  
*  
  
Victor Tugelbend was reviewing the schematics for what he had concluded was the transportation device. He had been told by one of the wizards what had happened and was now trying to rectify the problem. The sooner he could get them back, the sooner he could figure out of they were still alive.  
  
*  
  
There were a LOT of boats. There were the frigates and the galleons and great huge floating platforms on which the Walking Suits lay, lying down for stability.  
  
The luggage was getting closer. The gap was down to about forty-eight miles now.  
  
*  
  
Lord Hong pushed aside the curtain to the back room, and seated himself at the table. His guards automatically took up positions at the door and the windows.  
  
"Greetings," he said.  
  
"Greetings," said the other person at the table. He lit a lantern and hung it from a peg in the ceiling.  
  
"How go the plans?" asked Lord Hong politely.  
  
"Quite well," said Xu Chu.  
  
*  
  
6:19. The Magnolia guy finished the article about werewolf depression and skimmed the one on Antipasta.  
  
*  
  
Victor looked at the circuitry. It was so complex he realized with surprising speed the fact that it was probably quite simple and dolled up to impress and intimidate anyone trying to grasp its concepts. He double- checked Ponder's design and began to pull the wiring apart slowly.  
  
*  
  
Off in his own personal universe the Dean was really getting pissed. They were running out of air, though the brief stop in that other universe had temporarily replenished them, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could spend with the students.  
  
Students were to the UU staff what sulfuric acid was to most metals.  
  
He ran through the spells, incantations, and basic geometry he was going to need to arrive on the Discworld again.  
  
He hoped it would be the outside of the Discworld.  
  
*  
  
The Prophesy of the Pseudoagateans and the Ephebians would, quite shortly, be either exalted as the truth or crushed into the annals of history as a foolish lie.  
  
R&R  
  
Or flame.  
  
SAY SOMETHING!  
  
-Mobius Shadow 


	20. Duck & Kiss Your Ass Goodbye

I would just like to laud myself for a moment: Visit my web page: . GO THERE.  
  
* On the Hubwards side of the fortifications was something quite interesting. The town sat on the water, and the Plain of the Pots was Hubwards of that, and No-Name Base Camp was Hubwards of that, and Hubwards of THAT was-  
  
The Manganese Line.  
  
Erected on a vein of manganese was a row of fortified barking dogs. Constructed by the Pseudopolites to keep the city- which had been made capital once they burned the old capital to the ground- protected. The Manganese Line was twenty barking dog stations, armored and mounted on swiveling castors the size of melons. They could take out objects coming in on any side of the island, but were, in and of themselves, insufficient to keep back the Agatean Entente. They had been left to rust when the Pseudoagateans had taken power, but the Ephebians had repaired them and the Second Marines was now lying in wait, armed to the teeth.  
  
*  
  
Rincewind was currently inside the marine base, running up the stairs to the highest point he could find.  
  
"I'm doomed I'm doomed I'm doomed."  
  
He ran up the stairs. He was sure he could here the mortars beginning to fall.  
  
It was, in fact, the sound of men hammering sheets of iron onto the next boat in the harbor, which just goes to show what half a lifetime of running away from things will do to a man's psyche. He turned on the stair and ran back down and out.  
  
*  
  
"Take THAT!" Ridcully used the Bursar to knock down another guard and strode down the length of the hold.  
  
"I think we got them all, sir," said Ponder Stibbons weakly. He'd just watched Eskarina Smith use Drumknott as a shield while she blasted octarine fire at the guards. He was going to have nightmares about that. Drumknott, however, had just had a large dosage of the Bursar's dried frog pills and didn't seem to mind too much.  
  
"Well then," said Ridcully. "If that's all, we're now in control of the ship, and-"  
  
The wall of the hold next to them exploded inward, and they were showered with splinters. It was above the water line, however, and the only thing that came surging in was a single man, who said:  
  
"Overthrow The Injustice While Not Annoying Bystanders!"  
  
*  
  
Rincewind was going back through the Plain of the Pots. The sun was setting on his second day of being in Pseudoagatea, and he was really, really sick of it. It was sort of like what you'd get if you mixed Agatean values with Morpork determination.  
  
No wonder Vetinari wanted to stay out of this war.  
  
Huh. Now what was that big kite thing up there?  
  
*  
  
The Magnolia Guy was finding it hard to read in the waning twilight. The sun was way over on the other side of the Disc, and instead of setting, the light just went reddish and faded away.  
  
He looked at his watch. Six hours remaining.  
  
*  
  
Leonard of Quirm's Frothing Drink Device was becoming really popular. Someone had hit on the idea of putting tea in it, and they now had Tea With Bubbles In It, which became an instant sensation, as well as Leonard's Not Actually Chocolate, How About That Drink.  
  
In the harbor, armor plated ships lined up as the enemy fleet appeared on the horizon.  
  
*  
  
"And so, Lord Hong, your army and navy are ready?"  
  
"Yes. Pot Pan has readied his, and you, I take it, are ready to undertake one last measure?"  
  
"But of course. Victory is important, but we must have their hearts and minds as well. We will crush the rebellion- and we will make absolutely sure there isn't another."  
  
"How will you do that?"  
  
At that point, Rincewind ran in without noticing them, slammed the door, an peered out the window to make sure that no one was following him.  
  
He turned around.  
  
"Oh shi-"  
  
*  
  
Ridcully stared. The man who had just barged in- he had apparently punched a hole in the side of this ship and the one next to it, and had jumped across- was built in such a fashion that the hole, in order to admit him, was wide enough to admit to other people waking abreast. He wasn't big, but he was MUSCULAR.  
  
Two women followed him. On of them appeared to be in her late teens, the other in her twenties or early thirties. The first was lovely in the innocent sort of way that Ridcully probably wouldn't have given her a crossbow as a Hogswatch present, which is what he normally did to people he liked, and the second was pretty in the sort of way that made you want to say things like "You aren't going to hurt me, are you?"  
  
Oh yes. She was Pretty. They were both wearing kimonos, but these appeared to have been fashioned out of sailcloth dyed industrial green.  
  
"You're. soldiers?" said Ponder.  
  
"Rebels," said the older woman.  
  
"Right," said Ridcully. He decided to appeal to a common groundpoint. "Umm. You people wouldn't happen to possess a bitter and undying hatred towards the people running these ships, would you?"  
  
The older woman raised an eyebrow. Esk, glancing tentatively into her mind, could see that it ran like a clock, a clock in which benevolence and malignance were switches to be flipped at appropriate times. In ran under self-imposed guidelines and instructions. It was a mind you could appeal to, and possibly bargain with, but never befriend, unless it was on its terms. Not cruel, and not kind. Just-  
  
-Rational.  
  
Ridcully couldn't read minds, which was odd. Most people can read minds at some level, if nothing else through facial expression. Ridcully simply forced them open like a clam so that they had to explain themselves TO him, and by then he was in control.  
  
Of course, when a pair of minds like that collided, you sort of wanted to step back.  
  
"How did you know that?" asked the woman.  
  
"Wheel," said Ridcully in an analysizing tone of voice, "it's the way you're standing on that guard's head that tipped me off, really."  
  
*  
  
They had tied Rincewind to a chair.  
  
"Do we have time to kill him?"  
  
"Yes. Death can be executed quickly." Lord Hong drew a knife from somewhere about his robe. "By the way, who is he?"  
  
"He showed up yesterday by-" he spat the next word- "MAGIC. They seem to think he's the great wizard."  
  
"I'm NOT. I'm NOT the great ANYTHING. I'm bad at EVERYTHING."  
  
Lord Hong looked perplexed. "Great Wizard?' he said, and Rincewind could hear the capitals on the words. He was in trouble.  
  
"We had someone like that a few years back. And I remember- yes, I REMEMBER that hat. You're HIM, aren't you? You're the same one as before."  
  
"Do I know you?" Rincewind was going to die; at least he could die with the answers. He was afraid that if he died without them he'd become a ghost, and he didn't want to haunt this place.  
  
"I'm Lord Hong." He was GOOD at pronouncing capitals. "In that scuffle for control of the empire a few years back, you killed my cousin, the then- current Lord Hong, which rather saved me the trouble of doing so, with the same sort of vanishing trick Xu Chu says brought you here. And, while I must say you've solved me a few problems, I must, as a matter of family duty, put you to a horrible and excruciating death. Alas, I have none of my family's torture devices to so with, and a limited amount of time-"  
  
In the Magnolia Guy's pocket, his watch bangled and bingled through five hours, thirty minutes remaining as he lit a candle and started in on the crossword puzzle from an issue from last month.  
  
"-but I'm sure I can manage with just the knife or two I have with me."  
  
*  
  
"So, you're trying to sink this entire fleet by smashing holes from ship to ship and assaulting the sailors?"  
  
"It's going quite well," said the Pretty girl. "We've taken out twelve so far."  
  
"Interesting. Mind if we come along?"  
  
"How do I know that you are not spying for the enemy?"  
  
A sailor was getting to his knees in the background. Ridcully hit him with a blast of octarine fire that threw him back against the wall.  
  
"That good enough for you?"  
  
"Yes, I think it is." She smiled, and Esk felt her mind soften somewhat to them. The woman gently extended an arm, as though she had learned hand shaking from books.  
  
"My name's Mustrum Ridcully."  
  
"And mine is Pretty Butterfly."  
  
"That's Esk Smith, Ponder Stibbons, the Librarian [who had been prizing eating a bunch of bananas he had found in the hold after knocking two guards together by their heads and who gave Butterfly a happy 'Ook'], don't call him a M-U-N-K-Y if you want to live, Drumknott, the Bursar, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Chair of Indefinite Studies, and that box one legs is the Luggage."  
  
"Oh, we have those here," said Pretty Butterfly airily. "This is my sister, Lotus Blossom, and THIS is Three Yoked Oxen."  
  
"You're an invasion force? Three people?"  
  
"The other members of the Red Army are-" and here she looked a tad crestfallen- "lost. We lost them in the jungle. They'll be okay, but we kind of needed them to really take on injustice, you know."  
  
"Oh. Sorry about that."  
  
She smiled. "But know our force of justice is comprised of fourteen!"  
  
"Make it twelve. In their present conditions, the Bursar and Drumknott are probably best qualified as culvert-spanning equipment."  
  
"Cabbage!"  
  
"Shut UP, Bursar. Come on, let's take out another ship." He leveled his staff and blasted a hole in the wall opposite that the Red Army had just entered.  
  
*  
  
Time clicked, or hummed, or rattled onward. The course of the future was no longer a ribbon but was more like a piece of music for an orchestra; each instrument playing its part, some knowing of the others, some not. In fact, the only person who really, truly knew every aspect of the events was Death, and he was, not to put too sharp a point on it, gearing up for a big night.  
  
*  
  
In the town center, lights flickered up from the roofless Animo theater. They were running a click, with subtitles, called "Duck & Kiss Your Ass Goodbye", which showed what to do it you were a civilian unfortunate enough to be alive in the vicinity of warfare, and it was pretty lighthearted as those things went. Its star was Ben the Tortoise, a merrily animated character with a little helmet who showed people how the best way to survive anything explosive or projectile was to evolve a carapace and hide in it*. Since YOU didn't have one, your best bet was to Duck & Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. It had a snappy little tune, and as Uyidako played the piano, everyone Followed the Bouncing Shell and sang in Pseudoagatean:  
  
[All]  
  
There is a tortoise whose name is Ben,  
  
And Ben will warn you again and again,  
  
If you want to survive the weapons of men  
  
Here's what you  
  
Have  
  
To  
  
Dooooooo:  
  
Duck-  
  
And Kissyourassgoodbye  
  
(everyone, inhale)  
  
Duck-  
  
And Kissyourassgoodbye  
  
(everyone, inhale)  
  
[Music takes on a slower tempo]  
  
He'll do what you all will have to do,  
  
Men: You  
  
Women: And you  
  
All: And even You. . . [hold the note]-  
  
Duck [inhale] and Kissyourassgoodbye!  
  
[End]  
  
It was a pity Rincewind couldn't have seen it, but he was preoccupied.  
  
__________  
  
*The Omnian Church had forbidden this film, which was in wide distribution in countries in which Ducking & Kissing Your Ass Goodbye was the best strategy they'd heard of in YEARS, as being sacrilege to the god Om. 


End file.
